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Sunday Jazz : And a brief digression . . .

Arrived at the Yugoslavian Embassy to find Ambassador’s wife in a state of high anxiety, and His Excellency engaged in a complicated manoeuvre that may have involved several inappropriate farm animals, and a bitter reference to the mid nineteenth century Balkan conflict. And if you have been reading this rubbish since that was last mentioned, it is high time you got out more…

As does Hortense from time, making one of her desperate forays from the nether recesses of the back bar in the hope of more excitement than would be found on a good day at the Strangled Ferret, were it still open, which, of course, it is not. Having burnt to the ground years ago.

But I digress. Again.

Jam Session? Yup, that went alright. Got there to find the gear had all been put in place, so the Captain had time for a sound check and a beer. By the time we started, the pub was pretty much full, and noisy, and we ripped through a coupla instrumentals, probably more instru than mental, with Jane and meself swapping drums mid toon without in any way altering the standard of drumming and Geoff welcome back on piano. Then singer Jess took first swipe at the donkey: a neat little vocal set with “TurnMe On” a highlight.

Much noise, beer and clapping, and on we went, with saxes CaptainChaos, , Alan, Jeff, Laurie and later on, Keef. Mercifully, Sala arrived so we had a proper drummer, followed by Frank who only came to the pub for a beer, and only said he played drums for a joke. Pretty good. Max Teakle played bass then piano, Hussein and Mac alternated on drums, Neil played some brief guitar, and Marian recorded away.

All good fun, followed by a succession of tonsil artistes – Jane, Carol, Dayle (first up, good, thanks for waiting patiently, please come again), Judee Horin (p and v), Brian doing a Sinatra bracket, Yuko back again, Annie, unflappable, Chris (Route 66, and welcome back!) and then Susie accompanied by Malcolm back after a spell, with a closing stanza from Janine.

Jam session went alright? Actually, it was huge, 25 musos got up, noisy, fun – and we are starting to worry about how we might stuff it up…TW